Neolithic signs in China
Encyclopedia
Since the second half of the 20th century, inscriptions have been found on pottery in a variety of locations in China, such as Banpo
near Xi'an
, as well as on bone and bone marrows at Hualouzi, Chang'an County near Xi'an. These simple, often geometric, marks have been frequently compared to some of the earliest known Chinese character
s appearing on the oracle bone
s, and some have taken them to mean that the history of Chinese writing extends back over six millennia. However only isolated instances of these symbols have been found, and they show no indication of representing speech or of the non-pictorial processes that a writing system
requires.
sites in China
, small numbers of symbols of either pictorial or simple geometric nature have been unearthed which were incised into or drawn or painted on artifacts, mostly on pottery but in some instances on turtle shells, animal bones or artifacts made from bone or jade. These sites include those pertaining to the cultures of Yangshao
, Liangzhu
, Majiayao
and Longshan
. The question of whether such symbols are writing, primitive or proto-writing, or merely non-writing symbols or signs for other purposes such as identification is a highly controversial one, and the debate still continues today. Proponents of the view that they are early Chinese writing tend to see evidence in comparisons of individual signs with individual oracle bone script characters. Skeptics such as William G. Boltz point out that such comparisons are "notoriously risky and inconclusive" when based on such primitive scratch marks rather than on similarity in function (2003, p. 38). Boltz adds:
In general, the Neolithic symbols which have been unearthed to date are found in isolated use (as would be expected with ownership marks or clan symbols) rather than in sequences consisted with representation of the spoken language, and there is no evidence of processes fundamental to the beginnings of a true, useful writing system such as phonetic loan usage. As Qiu (2000, p. 39) explains:
Furthermore, the evidence is still extremely scanty, even when the early Shang period evidence is added to the picture:
It is still safe to conclude that the earliest known undisputed examples of true writing in China (that is, symbols used to fully record language rather than isolated meanings) are the oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty
, ca. 1200 BCE.
signs come from Jiahu
, Dadiwan
, Damaidi
and Banpo.
Jiahu
is a Neolithic site in Wuyang County
, Henan
Province, in the basin of the Yellow River
, dated to 6600–6200 BCE. This site has yielded turtle plastrons that were pitted and inscribed with markings known as the Jiahu symbols
. Despite headlines proclaiming the earliest known "writing", some scholars warn that the meaningful use of such individual signs should not be easily equated with writing, although it may represent an earlier, formative stage. In the words of the archaeologists who made the latest Jiahu discovery:
Furthermore, there is no evidence of a direct cultural link between Jiahu and the Shang culture, and the five-millennium gap between the two makes connections unlikely; as oracle bone scholar David Keightley
told the BBC:
(5800–5400 BCE) is a Neolithic site discovered in Qin'an County
, in the province of Gansu
. Its earliest phase has yielded symbols painted on the inside surfaces of pottery basins. More recent excavations there have also uncovered a handful of Neolithic symbols.
, at Beishan Mountain in Ningxia
, 3,172 cliff carvings dating to 6000–5000 BCE have been discovered over an area of 15 square kilometers, including a reported 8,453 different kinds of pictures like celestial bodies, gods and hunting or grazing scenes. These are reputed to be similar to some of the oracle bone
characters, which is to be expected given that the oracle bones, which are true writing, still retain a significant pictorial flavor.
Another group of early symbols which many have compared to Chinese characters is the Banpo symbols
from sites like Banpo, just east of Xi'an
in Shaanxi
province, dating from the 5th millennium BCE, and nearby, at Jiangzhai
, in Lintong County, from the early 4th millennium BCE. As the Banpo symbols were discovered fairly early (1954–57) and are relatively numerous (with 22 different symbols on 113 potsherds), these have been the focus of the most attention.
Some scholars have concluded that they are meaningful symbols like clan emblems or signatures which have some of the quality of writing, perhaps being primitive characters, while others have concluded based on comparisons to oracle bone script that some of them are numerals. Still others feel they may be ownership or potters' marks.
Finally, some scholars sound a note of caution, calling such conclusions unwarranted or premature. This is because all the Banpo-type symbols occur singly, on pottery and pottery fragments, unlike written words, which tend to occur in strings representing language. Thus, there is no context from which to conclude that the symbols are actually being used to represent language. Furthermore, there is no evidence of the phonetic loan usage and semantic-phonetic compounding necessary to produce a functional script as seen in the Shang dynasty oracle bone writing. Thus, leading scholars such as Qiu Xigui (2000) argue that:
Qiu also points out that they instead more closely resemble the non-writing symbols which remained in use even into the early historical period. Another problem which has been noted is that, since the oracle bone script was fairly pictorial in nature, if one were to go back to ancestors predating them by over three millennia, one should expect an increase in the pictorial nature of the symbols, but in fact, a comparison of the majority of the Banpo symbols shows the exact opposite to be true. However, it is possible that some of the Banpo or other Neolithic symbols were used as numerals in a pre-literate setting, and it is also plausible that when writing eventually did emerge, some such Neolithic symbols already in use (and not necessarily from such an early site as Banpo) were absorbed into that writing system.
province are said to occur in pairs or small groups. However, information on these has not yet been widely disseminated for independent scholarly analysis. Similarly, a few geometric symbols have been found at Hūalóuzĭ (a 2nd-phase Kèshĕngzhuāng culture site) in Chang-an County near Xi'an, carved on bone and bone items which some have claimed to be ancestral to oracle bones, but this is disputed.
in Shandong
, dating to c. 2800–2500 BCE, have also been unearthed since excavations started in the 1950s, and have drawn a great deal of interest amongst researchers, in part because the Dawenkou culture is believed to be directly ancestral to the Longshan culture, which in turn is thought ancestral to the Shang, where the first undisputed Chinese writing appears. At a Dawenkou site in Shandong, one pictorial symbol has been found painted in cinnabar
, while at the Dawenkou sites by the Língyáng River and in Dàzhū Village , eighteen isolated pictorial symbols of eight types incised and/or painted with cinnabar on sixteen pottery jars and shards have been found, mostly from wealthier tombs. Some resemble axes, and another has been variously described as resembling the sun above a cloud or fire , while a third type has the latter above a fire or mountain-like element. In addition to the similarity in style between these and pictographic Shang and early Zhou clan symbols, what is important about the latter two types is that they have multiple components, reminiscent of the compounding of elements in the Chinese script, thus eliciting claims of a relationship. Yú Xĭngwú identified the circle-and-cloud graph as the Chinese character for "dawn", 旦 dàn, while Táng Lán identified it as "bright", 炅 jiǒng, and so on. Helping fuel speculation of a link between Dawenkou symbols and Shang writing is their somewhat greater proximity in time (1400 years distance) and space to the Shang oracle bones, compared to earlier Neolithic finds; furthermore, the Shandong Dawenkou culture is thought by some to be ancestral to Shandong Longshan culture, which in turn may have given rise to early Shang culture.
As with each of the other Neolithic sites, the comparison is based on only a handful of isolated pictures, and there is again no evidence of use in strings of symbols such as we would expect with true writing – none of these appear jointly. Wáng Níngshēng thus concluded that they are marks of personal or clan identity rather than writing. Keightley opines that "they probably served as emblems of ownership or identity on these pots and jades, rather than as words in a writing system". Boltz agrees that they may have been "the pre-Shang counterpart to the Shang clan-name insignia" (p. 48), but contrasts this with an actual writing system, for which there isn't any evidence at that time (p. 51–52), while Qiu concludes:
township, Shandong
has produced fragments of inscribed bones presumably used to divine the future, dating to 2500–1900 BC, and symbols on pottery vessels from Dinggong are thought by some scholars to be an early form of writing. Again, this is controversial. Symbols of a similar nature have also been found on pottery shards from the Liangzhu culture
of the lower Yangtze valley.
A pottery inscription of the Longshan culture discovered in Dinggong Village, Zouping County
, Shandong contains eleven symbols that do not look like the direct ancestor of Chinese characters. Chinese scholar Feng Shi (馮時) argued in 1994 that this inscription can be interpreted as written by the Longshan people. Other scholars, like Ming Ru, are doubtful about attributing a Neolithic date to the inscription. The authenticity of these inscriptions is hotly disputed due to their appearance on a broken ceramic ware, an unusual feature among prehistorical text, as well as its unexpected relation to the Yi script
, a modern writing system associated with an ethnic group in the southwestern China, thousands of miles and thousands of years apart from the Longshan culture in northern China.
.
Banpo
Banpo is an archaeological remain discovered in 1953 and located in the Yellow River Valley just east of Xi'an, China. It contains the remains of several well organized Neolithic settlements dating from 5600 - 6700 BP according to radiocarbon dating. It is a large area of 5-6 hectares and...
near Xi'an
Xi'an
Xi'an is the capital of the Shaanxi province, and a sub-provincial city in the People's Republic of China. One of the oldest cities in China, with more than 3,100 years of history, the city was known as Chang'an before the Ming Dynasty...
, as well as on bone and bone marrows at Hualouzi, Chang'an County near Xi'an. These simple, often geometric, marks have been frequently compared to some of the earliest known Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
s appearing on the oracle bone
Oracle bone
Oracle bones are pieces of bone normally from ox scapula or turtle plastron which were used for divination chiefly during the late Shang Dynasty. The bones were first inscribed with divination in oracle bone script by using a bronze pin, and then heated until crack lines appeared in which the...
s, and some have taken them to mean that the history of Chinese writing extends back over six millennia. However only isolated instances of these symbols have been found, and they show no indication of representing speech or of the non-pictorial processes that a writing system
Writing system
A writing system is a symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.-General properties:Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that the reader must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to...
requires.
Nature of the symbols
At a range of NeolithicNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
sites in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, small numbers of symbols of either pictorial or simple geometric nature have been unearthed which were incised into or drawn or painted on artifacts, mostly on pottery but in some instances on turtle shells, animal bones or artifacts made from bone or jade. These sites include those pertaining to the cultures of Yangshao
Yangshao culture
The Yangshao culture was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the central Yellow River in China. The Yangshao culture is dated from around 5000 BC to 3000 BC. The culture is named after Yangshao, the first excavated representative village of this culture, which was discovered in 1921...
, Liangzhu
Liangzhu culture
The Liangzhu culture was the last Neolithic jade culture in the Yangtze River Delta of China. Its area of influence extended from around Lake Tai north to Nanjing and the Chang Jiang, east to Shanghai and the sea, and south to Hangzhou...
, Majiayao
Majiayao culture
The Majiayao culture is a name given by archaeologists to a group of Neolithic communities who lived primarily in the upper Yellow River region in eastern Gansu, eastern Qinghai and northern Sichuan, China. The culture existed from 3100 BC to 2700 BC...
and Longshan
Longshan culture
The Longshan culture was a late Neolithic culture in China, centered on the central and lower Yellow River and dated from about 3000 BC to 2000 BC...
. The question of whether such symbols are writing, primitive or proto-writing, or merely non-writing symbols or signs for other purposes such as identification is a highly controversial one, and the debate still continues today. Proponents of the view that they are early Chinese writing tend to see evidence in comparisons of individual signs with individual oracle bone script characters. Skeptics such as William G. Boltz point out that such comparisons are "notoriously risky and inconclusive" when based on such primitive scratch marks rather than on similarity in function (2003, p. 38). Boltz adds:
In general, the Neolithic symbols which have been unearthed to date are found in isolated use (as would be expected with ownership marks or clan symbols) rather than in sequences consisted with representation of the spoken language, and there is no evidence of processes fundamental to the beginnings of a true, useful writing system such as phonetic loan usage. As Qiu (2000, p. 39) explains:
Only when symbols...are consciously used to record words used to form sentences is there a true sign that the development of script has begun.
Furthermore, the evidence is still extremely scanty, even when the early Shang period evidence is added to the picture:
It is still safe to conclude that the earliest known undisputed examples of true writing in China (that is, symbols used to fully record language rather than isolated meanings) are the oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty
Shang Dynasty
The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...
, ca. 1200 BCE.
Early Neolithic
The earliest of China's NeolithicNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
signs come from Jiahu
Jiahu
Jiahu was the site of a Neolithic Yellow River settlement based in the central plains of ancient China, modern Wuyang, Henan Province. Archaeologists consider the site to be one of the earliest examples of the Peiligang culture. Settled from 7000 to 5800 BC, the site was later flooded and abandoned...
, Dadiwan
Dadiwan culture
The Dadiwan culture was a Neolithic culture found primarily in Gansu and western Shaanxi, China. The culture takes its name from the earliest layer found at the type site at Dadiwan. The remains of millet and pigs were found in sites associated with the culture...
, Damaidi
Damaidi
Damaidi , is the location of 3,172 sets of early Chinese petroglyphs, carved into the cliffs which feature 8,453 individual figures. These are believed to represent possibly the earliest writing system known in China....
and Banpo.
Jiahu
Jiahu
Jiahu was the site of a Neolithic Yellow River settlement based in the central plains of ancient China, modern Wuyang, Henan Province. Archaeologists consider the site to be one of the earliest examples of the Peiligang culture. Settled from 7000 to 5800 BC, the site was later flooded and abandoned...
is a Neolithic site in Wuyang County
Wuyang County
Wuyang County is a county of Henan, China. It is under the administration of Luohe city....
, Henan
Henan
Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...
Province, in the basin of the Yellow River
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...
, dated to 6600–6200 BCE. This site has yielded turtle plastrons that were pitted and inscribed with markings known as the Jiahu symbols
Jiahu symbols
Jiahu symbols refer to the 16 distinct markings on prehistoric artifacts found in Jiahu, a neolithic Peiligang culture site found in Henan, China, and excavated in 1999 C.E...
. Despite headlines proclaiming the earliest known "writing", some scholars warn that the meaningful use of such individual signs should not be easily equated with writing, although it may represent an earlier, formative stage. In the words of the archaeologists who made the latest Jiahu discovery:
Furthermore, there is no evidence of a direct cultural link between Jiahu and the Shang culture, and the five-millennium gap between the two makes connections unlikely; as oracle bone scholar David Keightley
David Keightley
David N. Keightley is an American sinologist, historian, and Professor Emeritus, Department of History, at University of California, Berkeley.He graduated from Columbia University with a PhD.-Works:*, Chinese Science, 12, 1995...
told the BBC:
Dadiwan
DadiwanDadiwan culture
The Dadiwan culture was a Neolithic culture found primarily in Gansu and western Shaanxi, China. The culture takes its name from the earliest layer found at the type site at Dadiwan. The remains of millet and pigs were found in sites associated with the culture...
(5800–5400 BCE) is a Neolithic site discovered in Qin'an County
Qin'an County
Qin'an County is an administrative district in Gansu, the People's Republic of China. It is one of 58 counties in Gansu, and administratively under Tianshui prefecture, with the city of the same name being the prefecture seat. Its postal code is 741600, and in 1999 its population was 567,553 people...
, in the province of Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
. Its earliest phase has yielded symbols painted on the inside surfaces of pottery basins. More recent excavations there have also uncovered a handful of Neolithic symbols.
Damaidi
In DamaidiDamaidi
Damaidi , is the location of 3,172 sets of early Chinese petroglyphs, carved into the cliffs which feature 8,453 individual figures. These are believed to represent possibly the earliest writing system known in China....
, at Beishan Mountain in Ningxia
Ningxia
Ningxia, formerly transliterated as Ningsia, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Located in Northwest China, on the Loess Plateau, the Yellow River flows through this vast area of land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
, 3,172 cliff carvings dating to 6000–5000 BCE have been discovered over an area of 15 square kilometers, including a reported 8,453 different kinds of pictures like celestial bodies, gods and hunting or grazing scenes. These are reputed to be similar to some of the oracle bone
Oracle bone
Oracle bones are pieces of bone normally from ox scapula or turtle plastron which were used for divination chiefly during the late Shang Dynasty. The bones were first inscribed with divination in oracle bone script by using a bronze pin, and then heated until crack lines appeared in which the...
characters, which is to be expected given that the oracle bones, which are true writing, still retain a significant pictorial flavor.
Banpo and Jiangzhai
Banpo Symbols
The Banpo Symbols is a name sometimes given to the 27 markings on prehistoric artifacts found in Banpo in Shaanxi, related to the Yangshao culture...
from sites like Banpo, just east of Xi'an
Xi'an
Xi'an is the capital of the Shaanxi province, and a sub-provincial city in the People's Republic of China. One of the oldest cities in China, with more than 3,100 years of history, the city was known as Chang'an before the Ming Dynasty...
in Shaanxi
Shaanxi
' is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province...
province, dating from the 5th millennium BCE, and nearby, at Jiangzhai
Jiangzhai
Jiangzhai is a Banpo phase Yangshao culture village site in the east of Xi'an, where the earliest copper artifacts in China were found....
, in Lintong County, from the early 4th millennium BCE. As the Banpo symbols were discovered fairly early (1954–57) and are relatively numerous (with 22 different symbols on 113 potsherds), these have been the focus of the most attention.
Some scholars have concluded that they are meaningful symbols like clan emblems or signatures which have some of the quality of writing, perhaps being primitive characters, while others have concluded based on comparisons to oracle bone script that some of them are numerals. Still others feel they may be ownership or potters' marks.
Finally, some scholars sound a note of caution, calling such conclusions unwarranted or premature. This is because all the Banpo-type symbols occur singly, on pottery and pottery fragments, unlike written words, which tend to occur in strings representing language. Thus, there is no context from which to conclude that the symbols are actually being used to represent language. Furthermore, there is no evidence of the phonetic loan usage and semantic-phonetic compounding necessary to produce a functional script as seen in the Shang dynasty oracle bone writing. Thus, leading scholars such as Qiu Xigui (2000) argue that:
- "What these symbols represent definitely cannot be a fully formed system of writing; this much is quite clear. Is there any possibility that they are primitive writing? Most likely there is not. We simply possess no basis for saying that they were already being used to record language. Nor viewed from the standpoint of the symbols of this same type that continuted to be used following the creation of Chinese script do they even resemble script". (p.31)
- "Quite a number of people, basing themselves on the Banpo-type symbols, have said that the history of Chinese writing goes back more than 6,000 years. Such claims are probably unjustified". (p.33)
Qiu also points out that they instead more closely resemble the non-writing symbols which remained in use even into the early historical period. Another problem which has been noted is that, since the oracle bone script was fairly pictorial in nature, if one were to go back to ancestors predating them by over three millennia, one should expect an increase in the pictorial nature of the symbols, but in fact, a comparison of the majority of the Banpo symbols shows the exact opposite to be true. However, it is possible that some of the Banpo or other Neolithic symbols were used as numerals in a pre-literate setting, and it is also plausible that when writing eventually did emerge, some such Neolithic symbols already in use (and not necessarily from such an early site as Banpo) were absorbed into that writing system.
Other discoveries
Symbols recently unearthed in eastern China's AnhuiAnhui
Anhui is a province in the People's Republic of China. Located in eastern China across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, it borders Jiangsu to the east, Zhejiang to the southeast, Jiangxi to the south, Hubei to the southwest, Henan to the northwest, and Shandong for a tiny...
province are said to occur in pairs or small groups. However, information on these has not yet been widely disseminated for independent scholarly analysis. Similarly, a few geometric symbols have been found at Hūalóuzĭ (a 2nd-phase Kèshĕngzhuāng culture site) in Chang-an County near Xi'an, carved on bone and bone items which some have claimed to be ancestral to oracle bones, but this is disputed.
Dawenkou
Inscription-bearing artifacts from the Dawenkou cultureDawenkou culture
The Dawenkou culture is a name given by archaeologists to a group of Neolithic communities who lived primarily in Shandong, but also appeared in Anhui, Henan and Jiangsu, China. The culture existed from 4100 BC to 2600 BC, co-existing with the Yangshao culture. Turquoise, jade and ivory artefacts...
in Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...
, dating to c. 2800–2500 BCE, have also been unearthed since excavations started in the 1950s, and have drawn a great deal of interest amongst researchers, in part because the Dawenkou culture is believed to be directly ancestral to the Longshan culture, which in turn is thought ancestral to the Shang, where the first undisputed Chinese writing appears. At a Dawenkou site in Shandong, one pictorial symbol has been found painted in cinnabar
Cinnabar
Cinnabar or cinnabarite , is the common ore of mercury.-Word origin:The name comes from κινναβαρι , a Greek word most likely applied by Theophrastus to several distinct substances...
, while at the Dawenkou sites by the Língyáng River and in Dàzhū Village , eighteen isolated pictorial symbols of eight types incised and/or painted with cinnabar on sixteen pottery jars and shards have been found, mostly from wealthier tombs. Some resemble axes, and another has been variously described as resembling the sun above a cloud or fire , while a third type has the latter above a fire or mountain-like element. In addition to the similarity in style between these and pictographic Shang and early Zhou clan symbols, what is important about the latter two types is that they have multiple components, reminiscent of the compounding of elements in the Chinese script, thus eliciting claims of a relationship. Yú Xĭngwú identified the circle-and-cloud graph as the Chinese character for "dawn", 旦 dàn, while Táng Lán identified it as "bright", 炅 jiǒng, and so on. Helping fuel speculation of a link between Dawenkou symbols and Shang writing is their somewhat greater proximity in time (1400 years distance) and space to the Shang oracle bones, compared to earlier Neolithic finds; furthermore, the Shandong Dawenkou culture is thought by some to be ancestral to Shandong Longshan culture, which in turn may have given rise to early Shang culture.
As with each of the other Neolithic sites, the comparison is based on only a handful of isolated pictures, and there is again no evidence of use in strings of symbols such as we would expect with true writing – none of these appear jointly. Wáng Níngshēng thus concluded that they are marks of personal or clan identity rather than writing. Keightley opines that "they probably served as emblems of ownership or identity on these pots and jades, rather than as words in a writing system". Boltz agrees that they may have been "the pre-Shang counterpart to the Shang clan-name insignia" (p. 48), but contrasts this with an actual writing system, for which there isn't any evidence at that time (p. 51–52), while Qiu concludes:
Longshan culture
The Chéngzǐyái site in LongshanLongshan culture
The Longshan culture was a late Neolithic culture in China, centered on the central and lower Yellow River and dated from about 3000 BC to 2000 BC...
township, Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...
has produced fragments of inscribed bones presumably used to divine the future, dating to 2500–1900 BC, and symbols on pottery vessels from Dinggong are thought by some scholars to be an early form of writing. Again, this is controversial. Symbols of a similar nature have also been found on pottery shards from the Liangzhu culture
Liangzhu culture
The Liangzhu culture was the last Neolithic jade culture in the Yangtze River Delta of China. Its area of influence extended from around Lake Tai north to Nanjing and the Chang Jiang, east to Shanghai and the sea, and south to Hangzhou...
of the lower Yangtze valley.
A pottery inscription of the Longshan culture discovered in Dinggong Village, Zouping County
Zouping County
Zouping County is a county of Shandong province, People's Republic of China, located on the northern edge of the mountainous central portion of the province. It is under the administration of Binzhou City, but is only west of downtown Zibo....
, Shandong contains eleven symbols that do not look like the direct ancestor of Chinese characters. Chinese scholar Feng Shi (馮時) argued in 1994 that this inscription can be interpreted as written by the Longshan people. Other scholars, like Ming Ru, are doubtful about attributing a Neolithic date to the inscription. The authenticity of these inscriptions is hotly disputed due to their appearance on a broken ceramic ware, an unusual feature among prehistorical text, as well as its unexpected relation to the Yi script
Yi script
The Yi script, also historically known as Cuan Wen or Wei Shu , is used to write the Yi languages.-Classical Yi:Classical Yi is a syllabic logographic system that was reputedly devised during the Tang dynasty by someone called Aki...
, a modern writing system associated with an ethnic group in the southwestern China, thousands of miles and thousands of years apart from the Longshan culture in northern China.
Possible Liangzhu symbols
There are also some items, including some inscribed jades, which have symbols similar to or identical to several of the Dawenkou pictures, such as the circle and peaked crescent motif , and another described as a bird perched on a mountain-like shape; it appears that some of these may belong to the Liangzhu cultureLiangzhu culture
The Liangzhu culture was the last Neolithic jade culture in the Yangtze River Delta of China. Its area of influence extended from around Lake Tai north to Nanjing and the Chang Jiang, east to Shanghai and the sea, and south to Hangzhou...
.
Literature
- Boltz, William G. (1994; revised 2003). The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System. American Oriental Series, vol. 78. American Oriental Society, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. ISBN 0-940490-18-8.
- Gāo Míng 高明 (1987). “中國古文字通論” (A General Survey of Ancient Chinese Script), Bĕijīng: 文物出版社 Wénwù Chūbǎnshè (in Chinese)
- Gūo Mòruò郭沫若 (1972). 古代文字之辯證的發展. in 考古 Kǎogǔ v.3, pp. 2–13.
- Kǎogǔ 考古 (1965). 河南偃師二里頭遺址發掘簡報 (Excavation of the Èrlĭtóu Sites at Yǎnshī, Hénán), v.5, p. 215–224. (in Chinese)
- Keightley, David. N. (1989). The Origins of Writing in China: Scripts and Cultural Contexts. In Senner, Wayne M. (1989). The Origins of Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press; ISBN 978-0-8032-9167-6: pp. 171–202.
- Lĭ Xuéqín 李學勤 (1985). 考古發現與中國文字起源 (Archaeological Discoveries and the Origins of Chinese Writing), in 中國文化研究集刊 Zhōnggúo wénhùa yánjiū jíkān 2; Shànghǎi: Fúdàn Dàxué Chūbǎnshè, pp. 146–157 (in Chinese).
- Qiú Xīguī 裘錫圭 (2000). Chinese Writing. English translation of 文字學概論 by Gilbert L. Mattos and Jerry Norman. Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 978-1-55729-071-7.
- Táng Lán 唐蘭 (1975). 關於江西吳城文化遺址與文字的初步探索 (A Preliminary Investigation of the Script on the Ancient Cultural Remains at Wúchéng, Jiāngxī), in Wénwù (Cultural Relics) v.7, pp. 72–76 (in Chinese)
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